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Blake Shelton's reacts to CeeLo leaving 'The Voice'

(Yahoo!) - When CeeLo Green mentioned his on Ellen DeGeneres's show, he wasn't faking the spontaneity of the announcement. At least some of his fellow judges were caught unawares, including Blake Shelton.

"He said that?" Shelton responded, when asked about it at a small radio roundtable in Nashville Wednesday afternoon. The country star had just gotten off a plane with his wife, Miranda Lambert, and no one had alerted them to the news yet. But his reaction was more mildly surprised than shocked, and he made it clear he'd seen it coming.

"I can understand," Shelton said. "Even though I hate hearing that — I'm hearing it right now for the first time — I campaigned a lot with CeeLo to stay. I knew what the network was doing with the changing coaches in and out, but… in the back of my mind, I guess I hoped that CeeLo would be back. I remember toward the end of that last season, he and I were both out of the competition, and so we'd sit there and drink every night on the show. And I'd go over and talk to him: 'Are you coming back? What are you going to do?'

"CeeLo is a guy that's got so much going on in his mind, and so much creativity, that a lifetime's probably not enough to explore everything that he wants to try to do. And he probably feels like he's done his time on a reality show and he's ready to go do a puppet show, or whatever he's got in mind next. Maybe stripper puppets or something. There's no telling with that guy. So I'm not surprised that he moves on. It makes me sad, though."